Look for rust colored streaks radiating out from the bearing onto the polished or chromed portion of the wheel hub. I've had that the last two times the bearings were going bad. I can hear the bearings whirring and feel a slight vibration in the hand grips also. I didn't notice any difference when cornering and the only time I've had a howling sound was from the tire tread on worn/cupped tires.

 

Thank you, I just looked, right side bearing (seal) was exposed and it looked dry, maybe a LITTLE seepage. Left side on the bearing (wheel) is covered by some kind of rubber boot, I couldn't see the actual seal as I could on the right side. Back in the day you would jack up the car and "shake" the wheel, usually grab the top and bottom of the tire and shake it in and out and see if there was any play in the bearing, not sure if that applies to bike bearings.

 

The left side is largely covered by the ABS sensor. The shake the tire method works better with tapered roller bearings like many cars use. The allowable play on the Harley bearings is only a few thousandths of an inch which might be hard to feel with a shake test. If it fails the shake test your bearings are very bad indeed.

 

Thanks rw, didn't see any rust when I checked earlier, just, as I said, a VERY slight seepage. I didn't feel anything that I could identify as a noticeable vibration either but these bikes shake rattle and roll down the highway so kinda hard to tell. The tires, although having 19K on them have plenty of tread left and no cracking, I'd like to get another season (5K miles) out of them and then have them replaced before next season. As long as I know it's not the bearings and just tire noise I can live with that for another season. Was your "howling" noise during turns or all the time?

 

I could be wrong, but from what I've read on the forums, I believe the bearing most likely to fail is the non-ABS bearing.

 

The percentage of early bearing failures seems to be small, which seems to me to most likely be some inconsistency in manufacture and poor quality control. Several guys have posted photos of their failed bearings, and the common thread among them seems to be lack of lubrication. I've popped the seals off every sealed bearing I use ( I won't use metal shielded bearings for this reason, plus, if they don't have inner plastic shields, they're poor at keeping water out) and the past 20 years or so I've found a lot of imported bearings that had about a 1/16th inch bead of clear (like vaseline) grease on one side of the bearing. This tiny amount has to be slung out and work it's way around the *****, which means they're going to spin several revolutions dry under load at first, and already at that point I'd call them damaged bearings. I've checked thousands of bearings and even found a few dry - not a speck of grease. Some serious recurring problems I ran into in the aircraft industry were fixed simply by properly greasing bearings.

If you change your own bearings, I highly recommend checking that grease first. You can't with the newer outer metal shield Harley bearings without destroying the seal, so use those at your own risk. I also don't use bearings with plastic ball cages/spacers, though I've only run into that once with a new aftermarket wheel. I bought a used metric that had plastic spacer wheel bearings (checking used bikes' wheel bearings is a high priority for me), and they were grinding away putting a lot of grit in the grease. I don't "stuff" a sealed bearing, but pack them what I feel is half to 3/4 full with a premium name brand synthetic grease - and no moly, don't use the black stuff in high speed roller bearings. Thicker isn't necessarily better, either, a lot of these new synthetics spread like mayonaise.

Installation order is critical on a Harley, almost always one bearing needs to be seated first, or your disk to caliper alignment will be off. There should be no compression load on that center spacer. If you take your bike to an independent, make sure he's familiar with the Harley way and doesn't side load your wheel bearings. For that matter, it's been done at Harley dealers, too. I bought the tools and do it myself, just do not trust shops to touch my wheels, bearings, brakes, tires, all of it. If you can't do it yourself, at least ask to talk to the mechanic that will do the work, ask him what kind of tool he installs the bearings with and (little chance of this) if he'll pop a seal and check for grease. These bearings are really old tech devices and at this stage in their manufacture, should be perfect, should last past 100,000 miles. They're also the most critical bearings on the bike, no other bearing will give you road rash as fast with as little or no warning. Don't take them for granted. Or your dealer...

About those symptoms of a wheel bearing going bad... the first indication can be, often is, when the ***** spit out one side, so waiting for a bearing to warn you is risky, some of them like to surprise you.

 

The "expense" with the bearings is the cost of the tools, and without the proper tools you'll be S.O.L. The bearings themselves don't cost much at all.
See George's Garage (Web Site) P/N: 740010, I think they're just under $200, but well worth it.

 

If this was common place the MOCO would be facing a very costly class action lawsuit of yes a critical safety item. Not saying it doesn't happen. I am saying that these forums are not an accurate representation of real world occurrences. I plan on getting mine checked at every tire change.

 

I heard the howling noise when cornering. There may have been some increased tire noise when going straight up but I wasn't noticing it. I never noticed any increased noise from the front wheel bearings when cornering.